I am an HBO slut: a tomb sweeping tale

April 10, 2007

I read some of Range’s T.V. show summaries and decided to give Jericho a whirl after Range suggested a good torrent site. It’s not bad. Both the site and the show.

“The storyline revolves about the residents of Jericho, a small, rural Kansas town, in the aftermath of a series of nuclear explosions across the contiguous United States.

The aftermath of this for me is that I started looking for shows I really wanted to watch and found one, The Wire. It’s excellent! I wonder why Taiwan has not scooped it up, as “cop show” seems to be a fairly popular genre. Plus, it’s been on the air since 2002 (and is still in production now).

The plot of the first season centers on the ongoing struggles between police units and drug-dealing gangs on the west side of the city, and is told from both points of view. Subsequent seasons have focused on other facets of the city. The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is “really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how… whether you’re a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you’ve committed to.”

I got the whole 1st season (13 one-hour shows) in one file. Big mistake. I spent most of the 4-day weekend glued to my screen. I don’t do this very often precisely because I know my, um, tendencies. Thank God that’s over with. What’s that I see out of the corner of my eye? A pop-up? A furtive glance to the bottom right corner of my screen reveals: “The Wire Season 2 Complete [www iPodNova tv]-download complete.”
Shit.
There were two moments of respite: one was on Saturday when we went to B&Q to buy a new chair. A new computer room chair. The other was earlier, on Thursday. My wife finally took some time off for herself and disappeared at 9 am and was not seen again until 1 a.m. You go girl! I had offered to pay for a weekend away, but she found that too “extreme”. That was the longest time away from the kids since, well, ever. Baby steps, honey, baby steps.
In any case, I was left with the simple task of taking care of my progeny for a day. My 4 year old son demanded to play with the neighbor’s kid, so off we went to find him, with my 2 year old daughter in the lead. After much undecipherable communication between my son and this other boy–I swear, I have a better time comprehending the eratic (erotic?) nuzzling of ant antennae–we came back to our garage. The three of them played innocently on our private road, with no danger of traffic disrupting their various insect amputations. A friend of mine showed up and I decided to leave the kids unattended, just for a few minutes, you know.
10 minutes later, daughter comes back in to the house screaming, entirely naked and covered with noseeum bites, scratching herself raw. After dealing with that, I set out to find her clothes, which she said were outside “by the car”. Ok.
I found her clothes, which were drenched and mudsoaked. They were in a heap next her tricycle, which was covered in a layer of mud. What the–and then I saw it. “It” was the black Toyota Camry belonging to the old man three doors down. The tricycle was  a mere triffle, a visual euphemism for the disaster which manifested before me. My son had covered the Toyota with mud. And small stones. He had then used the stones to clean the hood of the car, in big circular motions, just like daddy does with the wax. There was mud on 2 other cars, but thankfully no stone treatment had been applied to these. What happened after that was just a blur. Thank god for The Wire.
Friday night, an hour after the kids had been put to bed, my wife went to try to settle them down. Kid’s bedtime is such a chore, the most stressful time for me as a parent. That and eating. It seems only punitive measures have any effect on getting things done in a timely manner at these times and it depresses me. She found our daughter had taken off her diaper, a usual scene. But she also found our son wearing one of her diapers under his pj’s.
“Isha, what are you doing?”
“I am protcting myself,” he says.
“Protecting yourself from what?” his mother asks.
“From Daddy’s spankings.”

I came into the room seconds after he had said that and found all three of them–wife son and daughter–rolling about in laughter. As soon as i knew why, I also joined in, a beautiful moment of family detente. It was a great intermission, in any case.

Posted in commentary, parenting, personal